Friendster Launches ‘Do It Yourself’ Ads

July 30, 2009

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., July 30 /PRNewswire/ — Friendster, Inc., a top 20 global website based on traffic*, today announced the launch of Friendster “Do It Yourself” (DIY) Ads, a simple and cost-effective way for local businesses to buy and launch highly targeted ads with any budget on Friendster. DIY Ads are available immediately for use by anyone, including Friendster’s tens of millions of active users and Internet users around the globe. Businesses and users can buy ads directly at http://www.friendster.com/advertise/index.php.

With Friendster DIY Ads, businesses can promote products and services to segments of Friendster’s vast network of over 100 million users globally, from over 75 different countries. Advertisers can target thousands of Friendster users by utilizing a set of demographic targeting data for their ads such as country, age, gender, and marital status. Friendster DIY Ads can be purchased from any country globally and can currently be targeted to the following countries; US, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Ads can also be targeted to states, cities and provinces in all countries except Singapore.

Advertisers have full control of the messaging and creative in their ads, and ads can be optimized over time allowing advertisers to test campaigns on limited budgets. Friendster DIY Ads support both graphical and text ads, and all ads are in the standard 300×250 web ad size. Advertisers can link their ads directly to a web site, blog, Friendster profile, or anywhere online. Ads are purchased in a pay-for-impression or CPM model which gives advertisers the ability to determine how much it will cost per 1000 impressions (or times) their ad will be shown by country on Friendster. PayPal is the accepted method of payment for ads; advertisers can use their credit card or debit card to add money to their PayPal account.

Friendster DIY Ads complement the family owned business culture in Asia where Friendster is a leading social network and has more than 75 million registered users. Plus, Asia is the largest market of Internet users (Asia has 41 percent of the world’s Internet users, more than double the 19 percent from the U.S.), and Asia is the fastest-growing region in the world.*

Once a Friendster DIY Ad campaign is launched, ads are strategically placed and integrated into the Friendster web site and appear along side content created by the Friendster community. This approach allows advertisers to get their ads in front of users in the right places, without disrupting the user experience. Advertisers have access to a performance chart and a dashboard of metrics surrounding their campaigns. Metrics include total impressions, total clicks, total dollars spent, and campaign flight dates. Friendster does review all ads before they launch to ensure they comply with the Friendster Advertiser Guidelines; see link http://www.friendster.com/advertise/guidelines.php .

How to Create a Friendster “Do It Yourself” Ad:

A Friendster account is required to place an ad. To create a new Friendster account, please visit: http://www.friendster.com.

1. Log-in to Friendster
Go directly to the Friendster "Do It Yourself" Ad set up page:
http://www.friendster.com/advertise/index.php.
2. Create your Ad
Click "Create Ad" and build a text or graphical ad. Script the ad
text, upload an image for graphical ads, and choose the dates when
the ad is to start and finish, and add a link/URL.
3. Choose your Budget
Enter ad campaign budget. Advertisers will not be billed for more
than the amount specified for the campaign. Once the country in
which to run the ad is chosen, advertiser will see what the cost
is per 1000 impressions of the ad in that country.
4. Select your Target
Choose country, age, gender, marital status, and category targets
for the ad.
5. Launch your Ad
Save the ad and deploy it on Friendster!

Richard Kimber, CEO of Friendster said, “Small businesses can now buy ads to promote their products in a very smart and cost effective way locally to thousands or millions of Friendster users. ‘Do It Yourself’ Ads are integrated seamlessly into the Friendster user experience and community which allow advertisers to reach their target audiences in much more natural, and non-obtrusive way, we look forward to welcoming all the new advertisers aboard.”

Roy de Souza, CEO of ZEDO said, “ZEDO is excited to have collaborated with Friendster on the configuration of their ‘Do It Yourself’ Ads built on ZEDO’s own self service platform. In this current economic environment where social networks need to solve monetization challenges, ZEDO believes self service is a great strategy. It increases revenue without additional capex or cost of a larger sales force.”

About Friendster

With more than 100 million members worldwide, Friendster is a leading global online social network. Friendster is focused on helping people stay in touch with friends and discover new people and things that are important to them. Friendster is one of the best sites that allow people to meaningfully participate with others in exciting and fun ways. Friendster prides itself in delivering an easy-to-use, friendly and interactive environment where users can easily connect with anyone around the world via www.friendster.com or m.friendster.com from any Internet-ready mobile device. Friendster has a growing portfolio of patents granted to the company on social networking, with more expected over the next several months. Headquartered in Mountain View, California, Friendster is backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Benchmark Capital, DAG Ventures, IDG Ventures and individual investors. For more information, visit: www.friendster.com.

About ZEDO

ZEDO, now in its 10th year, is the world’s third largest ad serving company and the largest independent ad server. ZEDO focuses on maximizing revenue for web publishers. It sells behavioral campaigns for publishers, offers a cutting edge behavioral technology platform for publishers with a sales team, ad network optimization that calculates which ad network will pay the publisher the most, ad serving in flash video players, a widely acclaimed easy to use full ad serving platform and a new “Self Service Platform built by ZEDO”.

ZEDO is headquartered in San Francisco, California and has offices and development centers in India and Russia. For more information about ZEDO call 415 348 1975 or visit www.ZEDO.com.